rest of their lives. So forget about your so-called “responsibilities” and focus on your best interests.

Chapter 15

Unmarried men will live longer and happier lives. Stress in married men’s lives.

Women like to say that married men live longer and happier lives. That of course is complete nonsense because this statistic looks at men who die today (men born 70-80 years ago) and projects result on men who marry today (men born 30 years ago).

Men born in the 1920s and 1930s married around 1950s. Back then only drunks, drug addicts, and criminals were not marrying and starting a family in their 20s or early 30s. So of course married men would appear to live longer when compared to drunks, drug addicts, and criminals who usually die young.

So married men in the past did not live longer and happier lives because they got married. They lived longer and happier lives because they had their act together in the first place.

Also, women back then did not have demanding and nagging attitudes they have today. So married men back then did not have stressful miserable lives married men have today.

Today things are completely reversed. Married men today are stressed

more than ever. And stress always leads to health problems and premature deaths.

I recently read an interesting research report about how lawyers are two to three times more likely to become alcoholics and drug addicts because they are always stressed and unhappy. The same applies to

married men. How many married men today are happy and not always stressed? Not too many.

Let’s look at stress married men are exposed to in further detail. Not many men think about it before marriage, but they really should.

Commute stress

There were recently several research reports on the very underestimated negative health effects of car or train commute. The main reason men have long commutes is because their wives wanted to

buy a big house in a good school district that is far from men’s jobs.

Here are some results of the commute stress research by Dr David Lewis (a psychologist and author of several books on stress) and Dr Karol Watson (of the Centre for Cholesterol and Hypertension Management at UCLA):

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Average journey by train or bus is more stressful than being a fighter pilot in combat, or a police officer in a riot.

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As passengers’ stress levels rocket, their brains switch off, leading to a condition they identified as “commuter amnesia”.